"What's up?" he asks, seeing her distress.

"I have told Elizabeth," she says slowly, "what I am."

Quinton bites his lips with annoyance.

"I should not have thought even you could have committed such an
egregious act of folly!"

"I could not help myself. Elizabeth thought me so good, so different,
and her words seared my conscience. Ah! you smile, no wonder. It
ought to be dead by rights, long ago."

"You poor little thing," he murmurs tenderly. "But it was very silly,
and another time do not let a few miserable scruples overrule your
better judgment. After all, Elizabeth is no great loss, but it is
always unwise and unnecessary to give yourself away. There! I have
done my lecture, come and kiss me."

She flies into his arms.

"It is terrible when you are annoyed with me, Carol. I should like you
to think everything I do or say perfection. But then we cannot have
all we want in life, and especially such a delightful life as ours. Do
you know, however deeply you love, however constant you may prove, you
can never realise your ideal. It exists alone in the realms of fancy;
it is as unsubstantial as a dream--in fact, it is a dream!"

"Have I disappointed you then?" he asks, with a wounded look.

"Oh, no," raising her eyebrows at the bare idea. "I meant it just the
other way--that I have failed to please you in everything. An ideal
has no fault, and I appear full of errors. An ideal is something good,
holy, perfect. I am bad, unreasonable, foolish."

"You certainly have a way of making a fellow feel a cur without meaning
it."

"Have I?" says Eleanor simply.

"Do you ever long to be back in London?" asks Quinton suddenly.

"No--a thousand times no! It is a city of destruction, a hell of
iniquity, Satan and the Savoy, his satellites Giddy Mounteagle, and----"

"_Me_!"

"Carol," with deep reproach in her tone, "though my life here with you
is one which the 'Elizabeths' of Society shun and condemn, I believe,
in the peaceful atmosphere, the blessed quiet, and sweet unfretful
days, I have been a better woman. When I think of the daily quarrels
in Richmond, the frivolous worldly conversations of Giddy and her set,
it soothes all suspicion of regret in my heart. Love is my only law,
and this is described as chief among virtues."

"Then you are happy. I have brought some solace and light into your
days, Eleanor? If I died to-morrow, or was lost from sight, you would
look back and say: 'He g